218 BOTANICAL TOURS IN WALES. 
gust, 1639, they ascended Snowdon (Widhfa), the loftiest of the 
British alps, as our author observes : 
“ Hic montes alios inter caput extulit altos 
Quantum lenta solent inter Viburna Cupressi.” 
The mountain was then, as it often is now, enveloped in a mantle 
of thick fog (Scoticé, mist), which has the proverbial reputation 
of wetting an Englishman to the skin. 
The travellers having procured the services of a rustic youth 
as guide, left their horses and upper coats at the base, and com- 
menced their painful ascent. The awful precipitous rocks and the 
gloomy Stygian lakes are noticed in becoming terms by the nar- 
rator of the incidents of this ascent; but it might be a question. 
whether the party really visited the summit of Snowdon or the 
opposite mountain, Glyder-vawr. The “Stygie paludes, quarum 
maxima Demonis domicilium ab incolis vocatur,’ may be applied 
to Twll-Du and Llyn Idwal, where, as it is recorded in the early 
times of Welsh history, Idwal, the infant heir of Owen Gwynedd, 
was drowned by his foster-father. Demonis domicilium might 
not very inaptly be rendered “ Devil’s Kitchen,” the name by 
which the horrid chasm of Twll-Du is still designated. Johnson 
loquitur: “Sed quando ventum est, ut ulterius in jugo progredi 
non potuerimus, illic inter nubula consedimus ; primoque plantas 
mter saxa et preecipitia periculosé collectas in ordinem digessimus, 
deinde viaticum nobiscum allatum sumpsimus ;” 7. e. we did our 
work first, and then sat down to our lunch; a practice which we 
can recommend to the amiable fraternity that bear the vascu- 
lum: botanizing after dinner, or even after luncheon, is unsatis- 
factory. He then enumerates the less common plants collected in 
this locality, viz. Nasturtium petreum (Arabis petrea ? or Hutch- 
insia petrea?), Ovalis rotundifolia (Oxyria reniformis), Viola 
Martia palustris (V. palustris), Serpyllum hirsutum (Thymus 
Serpyllum), not a rare plant, Rhodia Radix (Sedum Rhodiola), 
Caryophyllus montanus minimus (Silene acaulis), Sedum rotundifo- 
lium serratum (Saxifraga stellaris?), Sedum minus flore albido 
(S. Anglicum), Cotyledon sive Sedum petreum hirsutum (? Sedum 
villosum), Gentianella Bavarica (Gentiana amarella), . . . Car- 
duus mollis (C. heterophyllus) , Salix humilis saxatilis (S. herbacea), 
Filix petrea elegans (Allosorus crispus). Also the following mari- 
time plants: Gramen junceum marinum (Juncus acutus ?), Caryo- 
phyllus marinus (Armeria maritima). 
